------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the June 17, 2004 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
BUSH, RUMSFELD CONFRONTED IN U.S., EUROPE, ASIA The first week of June was not a good time to be George W. Bush or Donald Rumsfeld. Bush was in Europe, ostensibly for 60th anniversary celebrations of D- Day, but really to continue begging the European imperialist allies he dissed last year to send troops to aid the embattled U.S./British occupation of Iraq. At least 200,000 people came out in Rome June 4 to call Bush by his right name: War Criminal #1. The next day, tens of thousands in Paris did the same. And Rumsfeld? The U.S. defense secretary was in Dhaka, Bangladesh, June 5 as part of a six-day tour to pressure Asian governments to do more for the "war on terror." But Rumsfeld, one of the neocon architects of Bush's preemptive war doctrine, only managed to display his feet of clay. Thousands of protesters filled the streets in the majority Muslim country, reportedly cutting short his visit. The duo must have wished they could return home to Washington June 5, right? Wrong. Both the White House and Rumsfeld's D.C. mansion were besieged by thousands of protesters, responding to a call for emergency demonstrations by the ANSWER--Act Now to Stop War and End Racism-- coalition. The protests were called to press the demand to end the racist occupations of Iraq, Haiti and Afghanistan, at a time when the Bush administration and the U.S. ruling class are wracked with infighting over declining support and the sorry state of the Iraq occupation. They were all for war on Iraq last year, when none of them believed the people could resist the Pentagon's power. Now that the Iraqis have proven them wrong, they're all looking for someone else to blame. June 5 also marked the 37th anniversary of the Israeli blitzkrieg, backed by the United States, which led to the occupation of the Gaza Strip and Golan Heights. So the Palestinian people's national liberation struggle took center stage as well. ANSWER demonstrations were also held in San Francisco, where up to 10,000 marched, and in Los Angeles. Bush and Rumsfeld wouldn't have been able to sneak into Kolkata (Calcutta), India, if they'd wanted to. Anti-war forces there answered the call of the West Bengal State Committee of the All India Anti- imperialist Forum to mobilize in solidarity with their ANSWER comrades on the other side of the world. The AIAF organized a June 5 march to the American Center in Kolkata. "With colorful festoons and posters and raising spirited slogans condemning these unspeakable war crimes, crimes against humanity, justice and peace, the march started from Raja Subodh Mullick Square in the afternoon and ended in a demonstration before the American Center. Effigies of George Bush and Ariel Sharon were burnt at the rally," the group reported. --Greg Butterfield ***** WASHINGTON: PROTESTERS MARCH THROUGH THREE WORLDS By Greg Butterfield Washington, D.C. The skies opened over Washington on June 5. Torrential downpours greeted protesters coming into the city by car, bus and train from the East Coast and as far west as Chicago. The weather mirrored the stormy mood in official Washington. The U.S. military occupation of Iraq is in crisis, thanks to the growing popular resistance there and wide exposure of Pentagon war crimes. Thousands of anti-war activists, community activists, students and workers showed they could weather both storms. Harsh skies didn't deter them from heeding the call of the ANSWER coalition. Neither did the bitter clash within the Bush administration and broader circles of the capitalist political establishment, which resulted in the June 3 resignation of CIA Director George Tenet. The rally showed that a significant sector of the anti-war movement believes this is the time to be in the streets against the war-makers. They are not diverted by elections, Congressional hearings and political maneuvers. Demonstrators gathered in Lafayette Park, facing the White House. Wearing plastic ponchos and holding umbrellas, they hefted banners and signs demanding, "Bring the troops home now," "Stop the torture," and, "End occupations from Iraq to Palestine to Haiti." The flags of those nations were prominently flown, along with Venezuelan, Puerto Rican, Mexican and rainbow lesbian/gay/bi/ trans flags. Even before the rally began, international solidarity was on display. A bus from Brooklyn, N.Y.'s Haitian community arrived just as a group of Palestinian women faced off against a tiny right-wing counter-protest. The counter-protesters held red-baiting signs and a racist banner that read, "There is no Palestine." The Haitian group, mostly women, immediately joined their Palestinian sisters, chanting, "Free, free Palestine," and drowning out the racists. HOLMES: AVOID THAT SUCKING SOUND Larry Holmes, co-director of the International Action Center and an ANSWER steering committee member, pointed to the White House and declared, "We are speaking truth to murderers, terrorists and torturers." He demanded that the big-business media covering the rally "devote space to pictures of all the Iraqi people who have died, and Palestinians, and Haitians. We will not settle for less than the truth." He warned the crowd: "If you hear a sucking sound, ignore it, because that's the elections. It's trying to pull you off the streets into a silly contest that doesn't mean anything. The movement is in the streets." "Everything we have said has come to pass," said Husayn Agrama of the Free Palestine Alliance. "They said they would bring liberation and democracy to Iraq. We said they would bring exploitation and humiliation. Haven't the prisoners of Abu Ghraib paid witness to what we said?" AFSCME District Council 1707 President Brenda Stokely said of the war- makers: "They discount that where there is oppression, there is uprising and resistance. That's what they're overlooking in Haiti, in Iraq, in Palestine, and throughout the world." Serge Lilavois of the Coalition to Resist the Feb. 29 Coup in Haiti declared, "The world has to know that U.S. forces were involved in killing peaceful protesters marching against the occupation." The crowd chanted, "Aristide, Aristide, Aristide," demanding the return of the popularly elected Haitian president who was kidnapped and deported by U.S. Marines in late February. Gloria La Riva of the National Com mittee to Free the Cuban 5 warned that the United States is preparing new aggression against the socialist island. "The Cuban people are not about to give up what belongs to them," she declared. Omar Sierra of the Bolivarian Circle of New York called for solidarity against U.S. intervention in oil-rich Venezuela. Several speakers were family members of soldiers stationed or killed in Iraq. One was Norma Castillo, whose nephew is imprisoned resister Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia. Ismael Kamal of the Muslim Student Association addressed the plight of thousands of Arab and Muslim men still imprisoned in the United States without legal recourse. "As our predecessors brought an end to Jim Crow, McCar thyism and Cointelpro, we will bring an end to the Patriot Act," he vowed. BERG: THIS IS A RACIST WAR The protesters gave rapt attention to Michael Berg, a longtime anti-war activist and supporter of ANSWER. Berg's son Nick, a small business owner, had traveled to Iraq earlier this year. Nick Berg was detained by U.S. occupation forces. He was finally released after his family took the government to court. In May Nick Berg was found dead. A mysterious videotape has circulated on the Internet depicting his decapitation by alleged Islamic radicals. Invoking the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Michael Berg said: "America has been in touch with me, [and] the people of America told me they have a dream of peace. I am here to answer the people who offered to help. Don't let what happened to me and my family happen again. "This is a war and it is racist. Let's act now to stop war and end racism," he urged. "And let's keep acting until we can raise a banner of peace that says, 'Mission accomplished.'" Besides Holmes, ANSWER steering committee members who spoke were Yoomi Jeong of the Korea Truth Commission, Chuck Kaufman of the Nicaragua Network and Brian Becker. Other speakers included Mahdi Bray of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, Cheri Honkala of the Ken sing ton Welfare Rights Union, the Rev. Graylan Hagler of Plymouth Congregational Church, Zack Wolf of the National Lawyers Guild-Lesbian/Gay/Bi/Trans Committee, and Ricardo and Noberto Juarez of Mexicans Without Borders. Messages were read from Ben Dupuy of the National Popular Party of Haiti and ANSWER steering committee member Macrina Cardenas of the Mexico Solidarity Network. MARCH THROUGH THREE WORLDS The demonstration concluded with a vigorous two-and-a-half-mile march to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's gated mansion. The march took protesters through three distinct worlds of Washington: the official world of government buildings, the super-oppressed neighborhoods of working-class D.C. with their boarded-up storefronts and burned out apartment buildings, and finally the manicured lawns of the rich. Spirits were highest marching through the communities--African American, Mexican, Salvadoran, Eritrean, Carib bean, white and more. Despite the foul weather, people came out of their homes and stores to watch, chant and take literature. Some even joined the march. Workers World Party vice presidential candidate Teresa Gutierrez led a strong contingent of WWP and International Action Center activists. Her campaign distributed a colorful postcard declaring that the "road to getting U.S. troops out of Iraq lies through mass action, not electing a 'lesser' evil." A group of Latin@ students from La Guardia Community College in Queens, N.Y., helped carry a banner from SNAFU, the Support Network for an Armed Forces Union, that read, "Support the right to refuse to fight." Daisy Nabarret told Workers World she had come because "I want to learn the truth about Iraq." "We've had the opportunity to talk with several members of the military and military families today," SNAFU's Dustin Langley told Workers World. "The movement against the war inside this community is growing daily. SNAFU is reaching out to provide support to resisters inside the military. We're also circulating a 'no draft' petition as part of our new No Draft, No Way campaign." On U Street, the march passed Sisterspace & Books, a progressive community institution run by Black women. Staff members came out to greet the cheering marchers. They waved a Black liberation flag and held signs calling for the removal of Mayor Anthony Williams. Marchers chanted, "End the occupation, join the demonstration!" and, "Money for jobs and reparations, not for war and occupation!" As rundown apartment buildings gave way to brick townhouses, the chant became "Donald Rumsfeld, you will see, Baghdad will be free!" Police attempted to split the front of the march as it neared Rumsfeld's mansion on Kalarama Road. Fired-up protesters forced the cops to remove barricades and the line of march merged again. Richard Kossally, who had been distributing Workers World newspapers to onlookers, was at the scene. He told WW: "When the first part of the march came back to join us, the cops felt the power. I started chanting, 'The people united will never be defeated.' The crowd went crazy. "It shows that when we stay united, we can make things happen." ***** SAN FRANCISCO: THOUSANDS RALLY AGAINST OCCUPATION By LeiLani Dowell and Brenda Sandburg San Francisco Some 8,000 to 10,000 people participated in a spirited march and rally in San Francisco June 5 to demand an end to the occupation of Iraq. Contingents of labor groups, veterans, Haitian activists and youths marched from United Nations Plaza in downtown San Francisco to the beginning of the docks at Embarcadero Plaza. The protest was sponsored by the ANSWER coalition. A brass band played the "International" during the march. A small counter-demonstration in support of the state of Israel was drowned out by chants of "free, free Palestine." Lara Kiswani of the Free Palestine Alli ance captured rally participants' sentiments: "You can put us in prison, murder our children, demolish our homes, but you will never crush the spirit of the Intifada. You will never crush the resistance that is rooted in our history of blood, sweat and tears. Palestine will be free." Henry Clark of the West County Toxics Coalition compared the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib to the torture that goes on in U.S. prisons. He cited the killing of Black Panther Party member George Jackson by prison guards and prison officials' refusal to provide medical treatment to Native activist Leonard Peltier. "The torture of Iraqi prisoners is business as usual," Clark said. Families of U.S. troops also spoke. Maritza Castillo, whose son Camilo Mejia is a war resister, noted the irony of Mejia's prison sentencing. "For refusing to torture and kill people in Iraq, the Bush administration has condemned my son to one year in prison, the same as those accused of torturing the prisoners of Iraq," she said. Fernando Suarez del Solar, whose son was one of the first U.S. soldiers to die in the war, reiterated that supporting the troops in Iraq means demanding their immediate return. Pierre Labossiere of the Haiti Action Committee decried the media's silence on the arrest of Lavalas leader and singer Annete Auguste (So' Anne): "U.S. Marines went to her home and blew up the gate to her house with military explosives, arrested her and 12 people in her house, including her grandchildren, handcuffed her and put a hood over her head, and we've not heard about this. Where are the human rights organizations?" He also pointed to the U.S. government's attempt to paint the leaders of the Lavalas movement as drug lords. LeiLani Dowell, lesbian anti-war acti vist and Workers World Party member run ning for Congress in San Francisco, urged the crowd to continue building an independent, anti-imperialist, revolutionary movement, especially in this election year. "With so many pressures on us at this period in time, with so many attacks on all fronts by the U.S. government, the most important thing is for us to stay unified, to not let anything divide us, to be strong like a fist," she said to cheers from the crowd. The Kabataang maka-Bayan (Pro-People Youth) Bay Area Organization Com mittee issued a statement at the protest: "The situation faced by many people here in the Bay Area, especially poor and people of color, is not far removed from the instability and insecurity faced by the Iraqi people in the face of a U.S. occupation. We also see an unstable future for our youth, with never-ending school budget cuts, and constant assault of military recruiters in the campus ... exploiting the youth's feeling of uncertainty to feed them into the imperialist war machine. ... "We call on all youth and students throughout the world to expose, oppose, and resist U.S. imperialist intervention in Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, the Philippines and elsewhere." Others speaking at the rally included Richard Becker and Nazila Bargshady for the ANSWER Coali tion and a representative of Fast 4 Edu cation, a group that has successfully fasted for the past 26 days at the Capitol Building in Sacramento, resulting in an almost 500-percent reduction in the interest rate on state bailout loans for suffering school districts in California. ***** LOS ANGELES: "NO EMPIRE IN OUR NAME" By Sako Sefiani Los Angeles Thousands joined a June 5 march and rally organized by the ANSWER coalition in Los Angeles. They marched through downtown to protest the occupations of Iraq, Palestine, Haiti and other countries. The protest, one of several throughout the United States, was held at a time when the multimillionaires, billionaires and corporate owners who pushed for the war in Iraq hoping to profit from it are losing patience with the way the occupation has been conducted. On the day of the demonstration, for example, the Los Angeles Times published a photo showing U.S. troops lying dead near their smoking vehicle. Not long ago a photo like this would not have been published. For a major corporate-media organ to publish photos like this one, as well as pictures of the tortured prisoners in Abu Ghraib, exposes the frustration of part of the ruling class. "We're here to say there will be no empire in our name," actor/activist Danny Glover told the protesters. He added that they were sending a powerful message to both President George W. Bush and Demo cratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry. Glover denounced Bush for the occupations of Iraq, Palestine, Haiti and elsewhere. Responding to news of former Presi dent Ronald Reagan's death, Glover said, "The groundwork for the move steadily to the right happened with the Reagan administration." John Parker of the International Action Center and Workers World Party said the "escalation of U.S. atrocities in Iraq, Pales tine, Haiti, Colombia, the Philip pines and other countries demands urgent solidarity from working-class and progressive people in the U.S." Parker is WWP's candidate for U.S. president. Parker also spoke of "the quiet occupation of U.S. youths, especially those of oppres sed nationalities, who languish in U.S. jails, often suffering treatment similar to those in the infamous Abu Ghraib prison." He urged the anti-war movement to expose the link between imperialist wars of aggression and domestic policies. He gave as an example the bosses' attack on health and retirement benefits in the recent California grocery workers' struggle. Famous Vietnam veteran turned anti-war activist Ron Kovic spoke. So did a veteran of the 1991 Gulf War and the brother of a soldier killed in Iraq. Other speakers included Muna Coobtee of the Free Palestine Alliance and representatives of the American-Arab Anti-Discri mination Committee, Committee on American Islamic Relations, International Socialist Organization, National Lawyers Guild, Coalition for World Peace, Pacifica Radio, Bayan International, Mindullae Korean-American Organization for Peace and Reunification, Global Women's Strike and others. Preston Wood of ANSWER chaired the rally. Several speakers pointed out that the U.S. handpicked "transition government" in Iraq is illegitimate. A close CIA ally, Ayad Allawi, has been installed as prime minister to be at the beck and call of his bosses in Washington. Giving an "Iraqi face" to the occupation will not work with the Iraqi people. They know what this occupation is really about: domination over the Middle East, protecting the apartheid state of Israel that acts as the attack dog for U.S. imperialism, securing oil for the United States and its allies, and making big profits for the transnational corporations. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe wwnews- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
